GIO deserves another chance

[Arazi440]

Gio has always shown his a gifted footballer, imo he is simply not suited to the hurly burly of premiership football and would flourish in a more technical league such as la liga, with half the premiership defenders more inclined to elbow you in the head rather than take the ball off the opposition fairly I can see players like Dos Santos always struggling in our league, that imo is the biggest problem rather than any alleged reports off his antics off the field.

 

[InOffMeLeftShin]

Say this enough and you'll believe it.

When has he been given a run of 2-3 full competitve games and been kept on for 90 mins, not just 45 min bursts? Jeez, I've seen Defoe/Lennon/Huddlestone have 3-4 games on the spin where they do very, very little but they still get given an opportunity.

Well it is still true so yes I believe it. He may not have played many games for us, but he has still done little. Defoe has scored 100 goals for Tottenham, Lennon made a massive impact when he first played first came into the side and earnt his place and Huddlestone made his mark under previous managers and has proved his Premiership ability.

Again players on the fringes who haven't proved themselves at least in the eyes of the manager will always have to do that bit more. Harry obviously thought that he hadn't done enough to make our squad on a regular basis but thought he needed games so has sent him out on 3 loans. He's not done so great in any of them. Maybe he'll come back to White Hart Lane and be outstanding in training and force Harry's hand, who knows? Other players have been on the fringes and managed to force their way in, why hasn't Gio? Must be a reason for it.

 

[StartingPrice]

I'm not looking to get into a debate over whether Gio is a drunk or not/deserves to be in our 1st team squad or not.

I do feel however that his reputation could be blown out of proportion, the evidence seems to consist of:

Redknapp's musings - we all know he is a shameless self promotor, he will say pretty much any old bollocks to ensure that he comes out of a situation smelling of roses. I could see a situation whereby he would rather just blame Gio's extra curricular habits for his failure to make it at Spurs, rather than admit his own shortcomings with regards to squad rotation.

ITK - such a wide range of possibilities here, how much of info conveyed is fact/personal opinion? Is the info first or second hand? Is the provider a WUM or being WUMmed themselves?

1 Picture - from the club Christmas party I believe, this does not an alcoholic make. For all we know, and as highly unlikely as it is, this could be the only occasion Gio has ever touched alcohol, which would account for the sorry state he left in.

Now I see what you are saying about no smoke without fire, but it's not impossible that there is simply a perfect storm of heresay around Gio which has led to this reputation he has.

To reiterate, I'm not claiming for one second that all the stories about Gio are fabrications, just that I believe this reputaution he has garnered seems to be disproportionate to the actual facts and shouldn't be used as a cast iron case in defence of him never getting a proper run.

I understand the point you were making, but you miss out one of the important pieces of information:
His parents went to see Mr Redknapp to apologise about their son's behaviour - why would they do that if it was all smoke and no fire.

The point is that, yeah, you can argue that we don't really know what has gone on, and have only the evidence of one Christmas party photo, but there does seem to be a lot of corroborating evidence.
I really don't see that even Redknapp would be so bare-faced as to invent stories of Barcelona nightclubbing, nightclubbing in general and hung-over lateness, if GDS was tucked-up in bed with a cup of Horlicks and a good book by 9PM every evening and not the slightest hint of alcohol on his breath. We saw how quick Lennon was to refute the claims about his health in Milan. This is GDS's profession and he has agents and advisers (his Dad was a pro footballer), do you really believe they would have done nothing to counter these claims, which could be immensely harmful to his career progression, if they really were completely without foundation.

I think this is a big problem with Redknapp, if he goes off a player it seems difficult for them to win his trust back. I think this can be detrimental to the side, as he ends up burning out the players he does trust. His trust seems to be easily lost and difficult to gain, a few occasions have arisen where he has been forced to use players such as Bale breaking into the side and Modric finding his way into the centre. Both players ended up in their current positions due to "luck".

Luck isn't something I want Spurs to be banking on and I do worry that we are on the verge of getting rid of a couple of very useful players at knock down fees as a result of Redknapp being too stubborn to just use his squad a bit more wisely.

Just 2 years ago Kranjcar was a regular in the side and Bale didn't have Redknapp's trust, had it not been for pure circumstance we could be on the verge of letting Bale go for a couple of million.

I agree.
I never said Redknapp was perfect.
I never said I didn't think GDS has ability - indeed, in my original post, I went out of my way to state that I would love it if he fulfilled that talent at the Lane.
But the fact remains that everytime the kid does one amazing thing in a big tournament there are folk on SC beating on about how he's never given a chance and it is all Redknapp's fault - and then a rant about how useless Redknapp is and how he never gives kids a chance (even though this has been proven to be a myth), usually follows (not saying you, Mike - just in general).

As for the Bale portion, there is absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever - some ITKs said he was considering letting him go out on loan, others said he was considering selling him, and, before he was reintroduced into the team, Redknapp stated that he had no intention of selling him.
When he was introduced back into the team it was as a full-back, due to BAE's injury, not as a winger at Krankjar's expense.

 

[dlnd1971]

Course you do , son

Listen mate I dont need to justify to you, if you dont believe i know them thats fine. I know the truth!!!!!

 

[dlnd1971]

He's been given sporadic chances and then shipped back out on loan. Shame we've never given him a run up front rather than carted out to right wing every time he plays. He was hardly going to shine at Ipswich under Keane's suffocating tactics.

Not a dig at Harry, but I always get the feeling that Sir Alex would have made something out of Gio. Harry lacks the subtleness to coax talent out of difficult characters.

Yep your spot on my friend, Harry has his faves and if you are not in that circle it dont matter how much potential you have you aint playing.

 

[hellava_tough]

To be honest I don't think GDS has as much ability as people give him credit for

Certainly not the sort of ability to consistantly turn in good performances for a Top 4/5 club in the Premier League

I know he hasn't been given a decent run in the team, but I honestly don't believe top players, unless they need to build up their fitness, need 'a run' of games to prove their quality. That first touch, off the ball movement and awareness will always be there in the top players, regardless of whether or not they've played many matches.

Take the likes of Modric, Sandro, VDV, etc when they first joined. With one or two games under their belt, you knew they were quality and would get better. I don't see that with GDS

Also GDS has been loaned out a number of times and still no other big club wants him - which kind of proves that it's not just Harry that doesn't seem to rate him

I think he'd do okay for a mid-table club that revolved their game around a flair-player (like QPR), but I think the bigger clubs would be after more ability and more consistancy

And if we're not looking for those types of players, then we'll never win the title

 

[mike_l]

I understand the point you were making, but you miss out one of the important pieces of information:
His parents went to see Mr Redknapp to apologise about their son's behaviour - why would they do that if it was all smoke and no fire.

The point is that, yeah, you can argue that we don't really know what has gone on, and have only the evidence of one Christmas party photo, but there does seem to be a lot of corroborating evidence.
I really don't see that even Redknapp would be so bare-faced as to invent stories of Barcelona nightclubbing, nightclubbing in general and hung-over lateness, if GDS was tucked-up in bed with a cup of Horlicks and a good book by 9PM every evening and not the slightest hint of alcohol on his breath. We saw how quick Lennon was to refute the claims about his health in Milan. This is GDS's profession and he has agents and advisers (his Dad was a pro footballer), do you really believe they would have done nothing to counter these claims, which could be immensely harmful to his career progression, if they really were completely without foundation.



I agree.
I never said Redknapp was perfect.
I never said I didn't think GDS has ability - indeed, in my original post, I went out of my way to state that I would love it if he fulfilled that talent at the Lane.
But the fact remains that everytime the kid does one amazing thing in a big tournament there are folk on SC beating on about how he's never given a chance and it is all Redknapp's fault - and then a rant about how useless Redknapp is and how he never gives kids a chance (even though this has been proven to be a myth), usually follows (not saying you, Mike - just in general).

As for the Bale portion, there is absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever - some ITKs said he was considering letting him go out on loan, others said he was considering selling him, and, before he was reintroduced into the team, Redknapp stated that he had no intention of selling him.
When he was introduced back into the team it was as a full-back, due to BAE's injury, not as a winger at Krankjar's expense.

You seem too be taking everything I post as a personal attack on your opinion or what you have written, it's not, it's my general comment on the GDS situation at Spurs/my opinion about the topics discussed by others in this thread.

The fact I quoted you was just a segue into my thoughts on the matter.

 

[JerryGarcia]

Not a dig at Harry, but I always get the feeling that Sir Alex would have made something out of Gio. Harry lacks the subtleness to coax talent out of difficult characters.

I think Ferguson would have shipped him out long ago if he was missing training and flying out to Barcalona to go clubbing. Also, Paulo Di Canio might have something to say about your second point

 

[mike_l]

As for the Bale portion, there is absolutely no evidence for that whatsoever - some ITKs said he was considering letting him go out on loan, others said he was considering selling him, and, before he was reintroduced into the team, Redknapp stated that he had no intention of selling him.
When he was introduced back into the team it was as a full-back, due to BAE's injury, not as a winger at Krankjar's expense.

The Bale portion was purely hypothetical, it is pretty much accepted that he got his big break into the team through chance, Redknapp gave him a few opportunities here and there without him excelling too much, similar to GDS. As you mention, and as I said earlier, he then got into he side due to the absence of other players forcing Redknapp's hand. Up to that point Redknapp stated he wouldn't be sold, doesn't really count for much though IMO. Redknapp frequently dismisses speculation players will be sold only to see them flogged a couple of weeks later, please don't think that I'm saying we were on the verge of selling him, I am not and have not even suggested that in any posts. The proven point is that what Redknapp says isn't always 100% fact.

The hypothetical part of what I was referring to comes in here, had we not been without those players for a prolonged spell and Bale had never managed to break into the side, what are the odds he would be sitting around at Spurs still happliy waiting? Pretty long I'd say and we could be looking at selling him off in the same way we are Gio.

I'm pretty sure that up until his resurgence Bale was the subject of similar calls from people on here to flog him as he was showing nothing, couldn't get a win, obviously wasn't showing Harry anything in training to warrant a spot, hadn't shown enough in his 10 minute chances, was a spice boy, etc.

Bale got a lucky break, we got lucky that he got his lucky break, mention as many Redknapp sound bytes as you like but the fact is until he had no other choice, Redknapp wasn't giving Bale a look in for about a whole year and that's with only 3 players ahead of him in Harry's plans at the time (BAE at LM and Kranjcar/Modric at LM).

Gio would have to wait for a mass suicide in our squad to get a chance due to the absence of others and is not helped by not having a defined position as yet, which of course is no-ones fault as such.

 

[kaz Hirai]

To be honest I don't think GDS has as much ability as people give him credit for

Certainly not the sort of ability to consistantly turn in good performances for a Top 4/5 club in the Premier League

I know he hasn't been given a decent run in the team, but I honestly don't believe top players, unless they need to build up their fitness, need 'a run' of games to prove their quality. That first touch, off the ball movement and awareness will always be there in the top players, regardless of whether or not they've played many matches.

Take the likes of Modric, Sandro, VDV, etc when they first joined. With one or two games under their belt, you knew they were quality and would get better. I don't see that with GDS

Also GDS has been loaned out a number of times and still no other big club wants him - which kind of proves that it's not just Harry that doesn't seem to rate him

I think he'd do okay for a mid-table club that revolved their game around a flair-player (like QPR), but I think the bigger clubs would be after more ability and more consistancy

And if we're not looking for those types of players, then we'll never win the title

not sure about that, Bale was nearly out the door before he got a proper run in the side.


William Gallas was a bit all over the place for 4 or 5 games at the start of the season

defoe and pav are the top that neeed a long run

berbatov needed a bit of a run when he 1st came before he really hit it off

sandro didnt look like much with a few odd starts and sub appearances until he played a couple of consecutive games

I think for young players, especially those from a foreign country, need a bit of consistency and a good run of games

 

[hellava_tough]

not sure about that, Bale was nearly out the door before he got a proper run in the side.


William Gallas was a bit all over the place for 4 or 5 games at the start of the season

defoe and pav are the top that neeed a long run

berbatov needed a bit of a run when he 1st came before he really hit it off

sandro didnt look like much with a few odd starts and sub appearances until he played a couple of consecutive games

I think for young players, especially those from a foreign country, need a bit of consistency and a good run of games

True enough that a player after a few games will get better and better, but I argue that even after one game you can generally tell if a player has something about them or not

Berbatov was actually a good example of this. I think his first game was against Bolton (??) and his touch and movement looked quality. He played more games and got better, but from that first game he looked like a talent

Unfortunately apart from the odd bit of flair, GDS hasn't shown that he's in the same league as the Berbatov's or Modric's. And I would argue the same with Bale - he showed an inate ability that I'm afraid GDS hasn't shown

 

[hellava_tough]

And he's so left-footed it's ridiculous

 

[Bingy]

...and the last English Manager to find success in The EPL? Sir Charles Hensteeth?

 

[StartingPrice]

You seem too be taking everything I post as a personal attack on your opinion or what you have written, it's not, it's my general comment on the GDS situation at Spurs/my opinion about the topics discussed by others in this thread.

The fact I quoted you was just a segue into my thoughts on the matter.

No, not really:grin:

 

[mike_l]

No, not really:grin:

Just the way it seems, I post something intended as a general comment on the subject, happen to quote you in doing so and you make a response along the lines of "I never said.. I said this... I didn't say so and so.."

All I'm saying is please don't mistake everything I say in a post where I quote yoou as a specific dig at anything you have said, I really can't be bothered getting into a debate along those lines.

Anyway, I've said more or less evrything I have to say on the GDS matter, anything else will just be going round in circles really I think. I'm not really pro-GDS or anti-Harry, just pro-Spurs and on this occasion I think we could eventually kick ourselves whhen he does begin to unlock his full potential.

 

[hellava_tough]

...and the last English Manager to find success in The EPL? Sir Charles Hensteeth?

Funnily enough an English manager has never won the EPL

I guess Keegan was the closest and we all know what happened next...:grin:

 

[hellava_tough]

Just the way it seems, I post something intended as a general comment on the subject, happen to quote you in doing so and you make a response along the lines of "I never said.. I said this... I didn't say so and so.."

All I'm saying is please don't mistake everything I say in a post where I quote yoou as a specific dig at anything you have said, I really can't be bothered getting into a debate along those lines.

Anyway, I've said more or less evrything I have to say on the GDS matter, anything else will just be going round in circles really I think. I'm not really pro-GDS or anti-Harry, just pro-Spurs and on this occasion I think we could eventually kick ourselves whhen he does begin to unlock his full potential.

The pro-Spurs camp :roll:

Worst of the worst if you ask me

 

[job16]

GDS goalscoring record in all leagues now stands at 18 from 103. With 6 of them coming for barcelona b.

 

[Viva la Tottenham]

Gio seems a talented kid but I'm more than happy to trust Harrys judgement with the matter. Harry obviously tried to motivate him even talking to his parents but obviously Gio didn't do enough in training to warrant more of a chance. With the 25 man squad rule there's no point keeping him as we need to ship players out and as he's done next to fuck all in his time here he won't be missed.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I'd keep him, but only on the condition he is made to wear a sombrero the entire time he's training.

How many chances does one guy need? He shines pre-season, against the likes of Orient or a 2nd string Roma team, and when wearing his international shirt, but he has to accept he's just not EPL material. Too lightweight, not smart enough off the ball, not tough enough when on, he either needs to start using his head a lot more or else he needs to put on a few stone in muscle, or grow three inches. taller. Yeah, i saw that one coming.

No more chances, for both us and him, he should move to a league where he is able to show off that pace and touch without fear of being broken or pwnd or laughed at.

Shame it didn't work out, best of luck wherever you go next, wee fella.